I am writing to you from Istanbul, Turkey on behalf of
Harun Yahya. I am a regular visitor
of TalkOrigins.org and I saw your web page
recently. I want to draw your attention to a mistake about
Harun Yahya in your review of the
SRF in Istanbul. Harun Yahya does
not deny the reality of the Holocaust but denounces it. He
has a very well known website visited and appreciated by
many Jews and people of other faiths called islamdenouncesantisemitism.com.
The real version of his book titled The Violence of the
Holocaust is enclosed for your reference (Unfortunately it
is in Turkish and has not been prepared in English yet).
The book posted at http://www.noontidepress.com/catalog/0247.html
has not been published and will not be published. I will be
very pleased if you correct this information on your
website and let us know.

That was the text of the email. I will
not upload to the Archive the attached 968 kilobyte Word file. But I did find a document similar to it on
the web: Soykirim Vahseti. Given just how serious a charge Holocaust
denial is, this Archive should note the existence of a rebuttal, which
is why the text of the above email is provided. This also forces me to
review the evidence that Yahya has indeed denied the Holocaust.

There are two separate books being discussed.
Soykirim Vahseti
(The Violence of the Holocaust) is the one that the author of the rebuttal
says is published.
Soykirim Yalani (The Holocaust Hoax or
Holocaust
Deception) is the one which the rebuttal author claims is unpublished.
The author of the email seems to believe that the publication status
of Holocaust Deception: An Islamic History of the Nazi-Zionist Nexus
should be considered to excuse the author from any responsibility for
the content of the manuscript. Such a circumstance would not exculpate
Yahya, and in fact, that circumstance is not true.
Soykirim Yalani
(Holocaust Deception) was published, was reviewed, and has been cited
elsewhere, even by Yahya himself. What apparently has not been
published is just the existing English translation of
Yahya's book.

In the entry in question, I referred to a "past BAV
page" having "listed a book called The Holocaust
Hoax as being written by Harun
Yahya." Recall that BAV is the acronym for the
Scientific Research Foundation in the Turkish language. On
February 1, 2001,
http://www.harunyahya.com/yazarhakkinda.html had the
following paragraph (emphasis is mine):

Yeni Masonik Duzen (Notice the
picture of George Washington on the book cover, accessed
December 3, 2003)

And if this is not enough to convince someone that the book has been
published,
consider the United States
Library of Congress
has this book
in its collections as any reader can confirm for himself
using the
Library of Congress online
catalog. (Click on "Basic Search" and then copy and paste the phrase
Soykirim Yalani and submit.)

Another interesting difference from ICR [American
creationist group Institute for Creation
Research] emerges when BAV explains how a godless
conspiracy established evolution. Much of what appears
under the pseudonym Harun Yahya
comes straight from Henry Morris [of the ICR], but it
identifies the main forces behind evolution as Masons and
Jews. This fits in with the all-too-common antisemitism
among Islamists; indeed, Harun Yahya
is also listed as the author of a book entitled The
Holocaust Hoax, which borrows much from well-known
American holocaust-deniers (Yahyand). Bashing Masons may seem
peculiar, but this is actually a common motif in Islamist
tirades, where Freemasonry, as for many Christian
conspiratologists in the past, serves as a symbol
personifying the Enlightenment culture that helped to erode
traditional religiosity. Usually the ancient enemies
— the Jews, who refused to accept Muhammad as the
final prophet — turn out to be behind Masonry,
secularism, communism, and just about every godless
evil.

...

Yahya H. Soykirim Yalani.
Istanbul: Vural Yayincilik, nd.

Holocaust Deception appears in the catalog
of Noontide Press, a press which publishes the works of
Holocaust deniers. Its catalog
entry for Holocaust Deception reads
(accessed December 3, 2003):

The wildfire growth of scholarly revisionism in the
Islamic world after influential French Muslim Roger
Garaudy's 1998 conviction in Paris for Holocaust heresy has
been some of the biggest and most heartening news for
revisionists in recent years. Holocaust
Deception is the first debunking of the WWII Jewish
genocide myth to issue from the Islamic world, as well as a
spirited, devastating critique of Zionism, from its origins
over a century ago to its current worldwide intrigues.
Author Harun Yahya, a Turkish
journalist who has been jailed by his country's repressive,
pro-Israel regime, writes from a Third World as well as a
Muslim perspective. In Holocaust DeceptionYahya places the Holocaust myth in the context of Zionist
ideology and machinations, reviews and summarizes Western
revisionist research from Rassinier to Leuchter, and
explores how Zionists have used the false victim status
conferred by the Holocaust to oppress not merely Arabs,
Germans, Third World peoples, but Jews in Israel and around
the world. A dynamic treatment that speaks not only to
seasoned revisionists but to potential new constituencies
for revisionism: Arab-Americans, Muslims, Afro-American
nationalists, et al. With a foreword by Ted O'Keefe. ISBN
0-939482-60-6

The Journal of Historical Review which is
the "journal" of the Holocaust-denying Institute for
Historical Review had a review of the book in its
July/August 1997 issue called 'Holocaust
Deception' Makes Waves in Turkey (accessed December 3,
2003). The first two paragraphs read:

A new revisionist book in Turkey has been receiving both
warm praise and sharp criticism. Published in Istanbul,
Soykirim Yalani ("Holocaust
Deception") is the first book-length dissident study of the
Holocaust issue to appear in the nation of some 64 million
people.

The handsomely produced 285-page softcover work,
subtitled "The Secret History of the Zionist-Nazi
Collaboration and the True Story of the 'Jewish
Holocaust'," is an attractively laid out volume, with
numerous photographs, nine pages of source reference notes,
an eight-page bibliography, and a good index. A second
edition, with an English-language supplement, is scheduled
for publication soon.

Finally I should note that while being involved with holocaust denial certainly
strongly calls Harun Yahya's judgment into question it does
not
make his claims about evolution wrong. Most of the claims
he and his organization make about evolution are refuted in the many
articles of this Archive. It is those refutations and the
positive evidence for evolution that should command
the attention of those who trying to make up their minds about the
validity of Yahya's
evolution claims.

I am grateful to Dr. Wesley R. Elsberry for finding some
references that I missed. Matt Young and Dr. Elsberry also
provided proof reading and suggested revisions. As should be obvious, any errors
should be considered to be my own.